Gal 5:16 …let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. (NLT) 5:22… the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23a gentleness, and self-control. (NLT)

I’ve been quizzing you on this the last two weeks and we always seem to break down when we try to name the nine fruit. Let’s work just on them for a few minutes. I’ve broken it down into three sets of three.

( right side, left side, women only, men only, under 50, over 50)

Did any of us struggle with patience this week? Sometimes it seems like the whole world has been set up just to test our patience…over and over and over again!

Yesterday morning I re-entered my house that had been occupied by the teen Rock-a- thoners all night…All I had to do was e-mail myself the Handout on Patience that I had written on Friday… so I could pick it up here in my office and finish this sermon. The file was no where to be found even though I had carefully saved it. 15 minutes later I finally found it in a locked read-only place that, even, the “search” mechanism on the computer took five full minutes of searching to find.

You can probably imagine me sitting there…just fuming…. while trying to find my notes on patience!

I have really been struggling with this topic because, as I have already admitted to you… this is one of my weakest fruit. What is especially concerning is that when I was younger I laughed off what I considered “nonsense” coming from other people… made jokes about it… I didn’t take myself or others very seriously..

As the years have passed I have come to find what I consider “nonsense” from other people, not funny any more…sometimes downright intolerable. To make matters worse, I have also increasingly been developing the habit… when I think someone is acting irrationally or spouting nonsense…. of confronting them on the spot….

Some of you are relating very much to what I am saying… the questions we all have to answer are:

1) When the Bible says we are supposed to grow the fruit of patience… what does that mean?

Webster: 1 : bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint
says 2 : manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain
3 : not hasty or impetuous
4 : steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity

We have yet to define patience from a Biblical perspective…. you probably picked up that even in Webster’s definitions…. Patience goes deeper than, just, not responding angrily when somebody says something that upsets you. There’s more to patience than holding your tongue in an argument… although that is certainly part of it…

As much as we appreciate Webster…the only thing that really matters, from an eternal perspective, is how God defines patience and how he promises to build this fruit into each of our lives.

God, as we have seen in the last nine sermons, is rather adamant that sinful fleshly attitudes and actions (like impatience) leave our lives and are replaced with divine fruit that increasingly makes our responses in this life more like God’s responses.

Philippians 1:9-11 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. (NIV)

I am, persoanally, dealing with the inescapable truth… that I am supposed to be increasingly filled with the fruit of patience. The Fruit/s of the Spirit are not part of some multiple choice offering where I can pick my three favorites and reject the rest.

I have to…and each of you have to… wrestle with the truth of how much this fruit has, or has not, grown in your life.

The Bible, and Webster, paint patience as a coin with two sides. It is actually possible to be growing on one side of the coin more than on the other…

1) Patience toward other people: Forbearance….Longsuffering

Some people develop endurance in life’s circumstances and struggle with being longsuffering with other people.

Others seem to have endless forbearance with others and yet struggle to endure under the hurricane winds of daily life.

Many people, of course, have neither 1 or 2….. and there are a few super-saints who have large helpings of both 1 and 2. That latter choice is the goal…. In fact, that is God’s promise to each of us, as believers. In fact, it goes beyond a promise and a goal… It is a clear command of God himself:

 2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.  5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. 10… if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (NIV)

The first three fruit, love, joy, peace, are all rooted inside our heart… you know if joy is present deep inside of yourself.. if it is not….. you can sometimes fake it, or counterfeit internal joy with external happiness. Peace (as Mike taught you this last Wednesday evening) is something that grows deep inside you and eventually spills over on the outside.

This fruit, number 4, and the five that follow, we tend to wear on the outside. If you don’t have the fruit of patience growing on the inside, sooner or later, everyone around you is going to know it.

Whichever side of the coin is lacking in you: Whether…

1) Patience toward others: Forbearance

…eventually it becomes common knowledge to perceptive people around you.

The imagery, in the words used for patience in Scripture, is of an ox tied to a plow. The ox doesn’t ask whether it is raining or windy, or too cold, or too hot. He just puts his shoulder to the yoke and pulls with all his might. He doesn’t do the right thing halfway down the field, then decide he’s going to do something else.

When the plow hits a stone or a stump, the ox doesn’t say: “That’s it for me, I didn’t sign on for stones and stumps”, He just plants his feet a little firmer and pulls even harder. When flies and gnats swarm around his face, he doesn’t snarl and curse at them… he just puts his head down and does the righteous thing with all his might.

That’s patience!!!

That’s the kind of “no guts no glory” living every one of us are being called to. That’s the lifestyle God has promised to produce in you by growing in you the fruit of patience. And, just for extra credit, just in case you were tempted to believe patience is optional equipment…. God repeatedly commands us to get this one right.

Both sides of the patience coin are equally represented in God’s commands:

When difficult times come into our lives, what is the first thing we ask God to do? God take this trial away!… I know you love me as your child and no Father wants his child to suffer… God I am suffering… and I am calling on you to do the Fatherly thing and eliminate this unpleasantness from my life. (God.. do it now! - like the commercials)

This whole mentality that has developed in Western Christianity over the last few years that God’s wants all Christians to feel good, with no troubles, no financial worries, no health concerns, all the time is, so, not what the Bible teaches… or church history for that matter.

If that is true somebody needs to go back and apologize to all those who were martyred for their faith… those who were exiled from their homes and country… those who lost everything to serve Christ. Somebody needs to go explain to the persecuted underground church in China, or India, or North Korea that the surest sign of God’s blessing is manifest in big homes, fine cars, and expensive jewelry..

God says, from the earliest authors in Scripture… that you are going to endure hardship!

It’s part of the human experience…more importantly… it’s part of the Christian experience.

Your growth in faith and patience is dependant on you living in an atmosphere where adversity is present! Cut out your tongue Pastor… that’s a terrible thing to say…

James 1:3-4, 12 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. 12 God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. (NLT)

You put your shoulder to the plow…when you hit a big rock you don’t throw up your hooves and quit. You pull harder… you rock the plow back and forth, you kick the rock with your back legs until it splinters into dust…but you don’t quit!

Do you want to be like Jesus??? Do you want you life to replicate the attitudes your Savior showed?... Then you had better be prepared to get to your destination using the same road he traveled..

Hebrews 12:2-3 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (NIV)

When we are going through trials… it should openly remind us how much Jesus suffered so we would not have to endure the eternal suffering of hell. Since God has paid the price for us to spend all of eternity in heavenly bliss… are we, then, also going to demand that he give us bliss for our 80 years here too? Sorry… his answer is no, nada, non…

1 Peter 2:19-23 For God is pleased with you when you do what you know is right and patiently endure unfair treatment. Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong. But if you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you. 21 For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps. 22 He never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone. 23 He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly. (NLT)

I’ve done fairly well on the “enduring through difficult circumstances” side of the coin… Maybe I can convince God that since I have exhibited some level of patience in life’s trials that He should let me off the hook on the longsuffering side of the coin…

But nooo… God gives us just as many commands about the patience we are to show toward other people…. Just like Jesus….

Romans 15:3-6 … the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled. 5 May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus. (NLT)

Ephesians 4:1 Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. 2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. (NLT)